TYED ART, INC - HISTORY VII

Transitioning from Hobby to Business:

During the course of working on the project, it became obvious to me that I was approaching an important benchmark in the life of Tyed Art. I was going to HAVE to legalize the company. Because I was going to be selling this product to stores and in tradeshows, I was going to need bar codes, licenses, and a Tax ID number. This would also be necessary in order to open a business account at any bank so that I could deposit checks written out to “Tyed Art, Inc.” For this, I went to Todd McMillan of Nevada Registrations, Inc. Yes, the guy from the radio program. I was glad I did it. I finally FELT official. Along with a real product and real plans, I now had a real corporate identity. Tyed Art, Incorporated was official!

Once I had finished creating the software in which my coloring pages were embedded, I sought out to find ways to produce my CDs. I found one company called Mixonic online pretty easily. They were inexpensive. It was easy to navigate through their design process and so I made a few prototypes. A good friend of mine, after seeing my CDs, told me about his uncle who was a part owner in an LDS distribution company up in Utah. On his recommendation, I called to set up a meeting with him regarding my CDs. He was happy to set an appointment with me, and I couldn’t have been more excited!

The meeting with Granite Distribution was a tremendous success. I think it became a much better educational opportunity, however, than a business negotiation. Interest in the product was obvious, and its novelty appeal was acknowledged. He told me that my retail price seemed a bit high, but that he wanted to run this product by his committee for further consideration. The only real commitment I got was a promise to be contacted after the committee’s review. I came out of that meeting beaming, having learned what types of marketing strategies might help, what kinds of profit margin to expect, what the price threshold was for my market, who my main buyer demographics were, and what types of things might be expected of a distribution contract.

I began modifying some things that I felt would make future such meetings a little better. I purchased bar codes for each of the CDs so that they would be “store ready” at a moments notice. I found a new printing and duplication company too. I was very lucky to find Conduit. Peter Jensen, the sales manager, worked really diligently to help me discover ways to package my CDs more securely and more cost-effectively. This ended up saving me several dollars per unit – a very big deal when large quantity orders are filled. I was also more comfortable working with Conduit after learning that Peter was LDS. This is, after all, an LDS product.